Definition & How to Overcome It

Feelings and eating are closely connected for virtually all of us. For Americans, the taste of a hot dog might evoke the feelings of a happy summer’s day, while roast turkey might conjure up warm memories of Thanksgiving dinners past. But for many of us, it’s not just positive emotions that are associated with foods. Sometimes our emotions aren’t the byproduct of eating, but the driving force behind it. In this article, you’ll learn about the definition and scientific background of this behavior, called emotional eating, as well as what you can do with a therapist or on your own to overcome emotional eating.
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Examples of emotional eating abound in our lives. What might first come to mind is the stereotypical romantic comedy scene of a woman returning home from an unsuccessful date and plopping down on the couch with a pint of ice cream to watch an old movie. Or you might think of a football fan who can’t stop eating the chips and dip as his team tries to stage a last-minute rally to win the game.

Although situations like these are often played for laughs in TV and the movies, moments of emotional eating are often quite private and personal. It could be your work colleague wolfing down another doughnut in their office before they have to make a big presentation, a security guard finishing a whole bag of potato chips out of boredom, or an overworked therapist sneaking in handfuls of dark chocolate between clients.
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I’ll share another example from my own life. Any time I attend an event with free food that is full of people I don’t know, I’m liable to overeat. While I might rationalize my behavior and say to myself, “I’m not sure what to do with my hands” or “this food is just too tasty to go to waste”, deep down I’m feeling a little socially anxious and choosing to regulate that anxiety by eating. Since the food I’m eating is probably salty and high in carbohydrates or fat, I’m liable to overeat while I’m at it, too.

Here is a scale I created for you to get a sense of how much of a role emotional eating might play in your life. Note down the response that best answers how often that statement is true for you. Then add up your total. The bigger the sum is, the more emotional eating you probably engage in.
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Rarely or Never (1), Occasionally (2), Sometimes (3), Often (4)

1. I often eat more of a food than I planned to.
2. When I feel depressed or sad, I find myself eating to feel better.
3. If I’m bored, eating is one of the first things I think of doing.
4. In stressful times, I eat more.
5. If I’m alone, I’m likely to eat larger amounts of my favorite foods than I would if I was around other people.
6. It’s hard to control my eating late at night, or after a long day of work.
7. There are particular foods I find myself craving again and again.
8. I can calm myself down from anger or anxiety by eating.

Although emotional eating is not an official mental health disorder, many therapeutic methods for treating emotional eating have been developed. First of all, interventions that use mindfulness meditation are known to help people reduce their emotional eating (Katterman et al., 2014). Through building mindfulness skills, self-acceptance, and emotional awareness, people can become more aware of what triggers them to want to emotionally eat, then respond more effectively to those negative emotions (Kristeller et al., 2014).

Another intervention has used elements of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to treat emotional eating (Forman et al., 2013). In this treatment, participants focus on learning to tolerate distressing feelings, become aware of their experience, and act in ways that align with their values.
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Finally, interventions that focus on skills such as emotion regulation can help people reduce their emotional eating (van Strien, 2018). Therapists have treated emotional eating effectively with emotion regulation and other tools from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, a type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Roosen et al., 2012).

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.

To keep learning, here are some books to explore:​​

All of us have likely engaged in emotional eating at some point. Food is so effective at changing our moods and so easy to access that it’s almost inevitable. I hope you do not feel shame or guilt if this article has helped you recognize that you are an emotional eater. I most certainly am, too.
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Thankfully, this is a behavioral pattern that we can recognize and change. Each time you catch yourself emotionally eating is an opportunity to learn something about yourself. What emotions are hard for you to handle? What other coping skills would you like to strengthen? With time and effort, you may see changes that go beyond your eating habits or your waistline.

• ​Arnow, B., Kenardy, J., & Agras, W. S. (1994). The Emotional Eating Scale: the development of a measure to assess coping with negative affect by eating. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 18(1), 79-90.
• Bennett, J., Greene, G., & Schwartz-Barcott, D. (2013). Perceptions of emotional eating behavior: a qualitative study of college students. Appetite, 60, 187-192.
• Forman, E. M., Butryn, M. L., Juarascio, A. S., Bradley, L. E., Lowe, M. R., Herbert, J. D., & Shaw, J. A. (2013). The mind your health project: a randomized controlled trial of an innovative behavioral treatment for obesity. Obesity, 21, 1119–1126.
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• Katterman, S. N., Kleinman, B. M., Hood, M. M., Nackers, L. M., & Corsica, J. A. (2014). Mindfulness meditation as an intervention for binge eating, emotional eating, an weight loss: a systematic review. Eating Behaviors, 15(2), 197-204.
• Kemp, E., & Kopp, S. W. (2011). Emotion regulation consumption: when feeling better is the aim. Journal of Consumer Behavior, 10(1), 1-7.
• Kristeller, J. L., Wolever, R. Q., & Sheets, V. (2014). Mindfulness-based eating awareness training (MB-EAT) for binge eating: a randomized clinical trial. Mindfulness, 5, 282–297.
• Lindeman, M., & Stark, K. (2001). Emotional eating and eating disorder psychopathology. Eating Disorders, 9, 251-259.
• Ricca, V., Castellini, G., Lo Sauro, C., Ravaldi, C., Lapi, F., … , & Faravelli, C. (2009). Correlations between binge eating and emotional eating in a sample of overweight subjects. Appetite, 53(3), 418-421.
• Roosen, M. A., Safer, D., Adler, S., Cebolla, A., & van Strien, T. (2012). Group dialectical behavior therapy adapted for obese emotional eaters; a pilot study. Nutricion Hospitalaria, 27, 1141–1147.
• Spoor, S. T. P., Bekker, M. H. J., van Strien, T., & van Heck, G. L. (2007). Relations between negative affect, coping, and emotional eating. Appetite, 48(3), 368-376.
• Tan, C. C., & Chow, C. M. (2014). Stress and emotional eating: the mediating role of eating dysregulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 66, 1-4.
• Van Strien, T. (2018). Causes of emotional eating and matched treatment of obesity. Current Diabetes Reports, 18, 35.